Queer Memorials & ACTing UP

Queer Memorials & ACTing UP by Nicholas Howard

In another fun installment of the Sex, History, & the Cities blog, our group ventured out into Greenwich Village to first explore the New York City AIDS Memorial and then later the Stonewall Inn. Saturday was primarily a day to explore memorialization, commemoration, and gain a sense of queer life during the time period of the AIDS epidemic and the Stonewall riots.

 

Our first stop was the New York City AIDS Memorial. We had a short presentation from Nick Fields, a student in our cohort, that gave us some brief background knowledge of the monument. We talked about how the monument itself is extremely controversial for a number of reasons that include the fact that it is privately maintained, it is a memorial to mostly queer people, it has writings solely from Walt Whitman (a cisgender white male), and that it is the first of it’s kind. I think that it is notable as well to bring up the fact that this memorial was just erected two years ago on World AIDS Day in 2016. This memorial really helped me realize how instrumental the AIDS epidemic was and is still shaping queer history.

 

Our next stop was the historic Stonewall Inn. We had a phenomenal site visit presentation from Nick Fields and Breanna Johnson that really set the bar high for the rest of us. It was super informative and insightful for a lot of us. Nonetheless, many of the group members felt extremely underwhelmed by the Stonewall Inn. However, I think that all of us were able to come to the consensus that the visual appearance and magnitude of the Stonewall Inn doesn’t take away from the historical importance of the site as an essential piece of queer history.

 

At the Stonewall Inn, we were able to have the chance to talk to Tree Sequoia who is an eighty-year-old person who participated in the riots. After our meeting with Tree, we had a discussion about the changes in language compared to now. We are often accustomed to communicating in an academic setting where some types of language aren’t used anymore. Despite these slight differences in language, Tree effectively gave us all the ability to extract a sense of what it really meant to be a queer individual in New York in 1969. For me, I really appreciated the true response that we received from Tree that included rooftop sex, burning trash cans, throwing bottles, running to a coffee shop, and the acknowledgement that he was just having fun in the right place at the right time.

On Sunday, we had the privilege to finally get to work with ACT UP. We started off the morning with a short discussion about the history of ACT UP. After the discussion, we decided to visit the New York LGBTQ Center. At the center, we met with an individual meeting with a facilitator from ACT UP that gave information about ACT UP meetings, current projects, and how the organization has changed since the epidemic. She then split us in to groups and had us work on activist plans at Purdue. These plans included a needle exchange, providing more access to inclusive safer sex materials, and creating a queer student coalition. Finally, we were given the chance to help ACT UP create some materials for the Pride Parade which were tombstones targeting the accessibility to PrEP and direct criticism towards Big Pharma. I think that this service learning opportunity was a great opportunity to learn more about activism and it gives us a way to plan our own campaigns back at home.

 

Tomorrow, we will have the exciting chance to continue our learning by participating in an actual ACT UP meeting. I am extremely excited to get the chance to learn even more about HIV/AIDS in healthcare and the impact of the large pharmaceutical companies on the epidemic as we further our travels!!